Corporal Kenny Lyon, USMC of Marion Station is
seriously injured in combat
Monday, my friend and neighbor, Gigi Windsor found out
that her 20 year old son Kenny was injured by a roadside
bomb while traveling in a convoy north of Fallujah. He
was airlifted to a Baghdad hospital. No information was
available except that Kenny was alive. Tuesday morning
Kenny was flown from Baghdad to a German hospital but
the only information available was that he was in
Intensive Care and had many life threatening wounds.
Two other Marines hit in the convoy were also seriously
injured. This is Kenny’s third year as a U.S. Marine
and his second tour in Iraq.
Finally yesterday evening, after Congressman Wayne
Gilchrest’s office petitioned for information on Kenny’s
condition, Gigi was told that Kenny had lost his leg
and most of his lower face. Doctors have reattached his
jaw but are not sure the healing will be successful.
Kenny’s leg was amputated before leaving Iraq. He had
bones broken in his arm that severed an artery and
countless shrapnel wounds all over his body with many
being about the head, neck and chest area. He is on a
respirator, lying with his abdomen open because fluid
continues to drain into his lower bowel cavity and the
doctors can’t yet figure out where it’s coming from.
Though he is heavily sedated, the hospital staff says
Kenny can squeeze your hand and follow you with his
eyes. Once he is stabilized he will be flown to Walter
Reed Hospital in Washington, but infection is the big
threat to his life now. Every wound has the possibility
of becoming infected and every infection can be life
threatening.
Kenny
was so excited to become a Marine and so proud that he
would often wear his uniform when visiting home. He
helped my husband Dan hook up the electric system for
our pond and was frequently a guest at our house for
dinner. That kid could eat!! Just before enlisting
he came over regularly to work out with my son, Danny
who had just returned home after four years in the
Marines. Danny helped Kenny get into shape before going off to
boot camp. Danny bought Kenny’s car just before Kenny
left Marion Station for Camp Pendleton to start – what
Kenny told us was “his new life.” He planned to be a
career Marine and there was no Marine more proud to
serve his country.
News of service men and women being wounded or killed in
the war, though sad has become common – we hear it on
the news, but somehow our instinct for self preservation
allows us to move on with our lives relatively untouched
by the tragedy. But news of this young man renders me
powerless to move on. The coarse tragedy that young
lives are being extinguished in their prime takes on new
meaning when I think of Kenny (a baby, really) from my
tiny piece of rural America being struck down so
violently and senselessly - less than one week before
his 21st birthday.
The same body I hugged, blessed and wished well as he
left our small home town for Iraq is now mutilated. I
keep imagining 20 year old Kenny, permanently disfigured
and disabled, lying in a German hospital with a machine
breathing for him and all his young hopes for the future
dashed. But more painful to me are conversations with
his mother – my friend – who one minute is able to
retain a quiet strength and the next is moved to sheer
desperation frantically trying to cope with knowing that
her only son lay broken and bleeding, suffering near
death so far away from home. Can any mother imagine a
worse tragedy? Well, yes, sadly there are worse
tragedies.
In the past,
when I’ve heard “support our troops” I thought of all
these young people in a general sense. Naturally, it’s
disheartening to picture brave young American troops
standing in harm's way to protect the rights and
freedoms that all human beings deserve, and sadly some
are lost. But my mind's picture is now
transformed. That generic, though proud image of our
troops in combat is now a vivid rendering of thousands and thousands of Kennys
... with hopes
and dreams and mothers and fathers and children who love
them.
It’s almost unbearable to add to that image the tragedy
of Iraqi families who have lost and continue to lose
their loved ones. If Kenny’s tragedy is the tragedy of
one family, who can imagine the compounded tragedies of
thousands who have suffered these and worse
circumstances under the oppression and darkness that has
covered the Middle East these past thirty+ years?
Though our mortal minds cannot grasp the scope of
suffering this war inflicts on the world’s people, our
comfort lies in Christ who knows every hair on the head
of those wounded, killed or spiritually crushed by the
evil that penetrates the human spirit, prodding towards
the choice of hate and selfishness over love and
compassion. Our only comfort lies in knowing Christ
suffers with those who mourn, he knows their pain, he is
the well from which we draw consolation, and nothing can
separate us from his love. Most of me hopes that our US
troops killed the bastards that laid the bomb that got
Kenny. However, I can still cling to Christ’s request
that we resist the temptation to hate and look for
opportunities to embrace compassion when loving doesn’t
make sense.
Sorry for the long pontification (do any of you really
believe I’m sorry for pontificating?). Bless those of
you who have suffered through my opinionated discourse over the years. But it does us good to pause
and reflect when the path of life is altered permanently
by affliction. Since the beginning of recorded history,
prayer has consoled the suffering … thus my reason for
sharing this story with all of you.
Please join me in prayer for Kenny and his mother, Gigi
and ask your friends and those in your faith communities
to pray for this family – especially this Saturday, May
6th when Kenny will turn 21.
Mindie Burgoyne - May 4, 2006
"I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray
the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the
soldiers will soon return to their homes."
Our Lady of Fatima
spoken to the child Lucia on October 13, 1917.
Kenny at his homecoming party
September 24, 2006
© Copyright 2006
by Trinity Publications. All Rights Reserved.
Used only with permission.
No part of this work may be reprinted or used without
the permission of the copyright holder.
back to Writing the Vision home page
